Category Archives: New recipe

This is something I kept seeing on Pinterest and finally decided it was time to try it out.

I sort of used this recipe, but I knew I wanted something a more vegetabley than this recipe, so I kind of added my own twists. I also used boneless skinless chicken thighs rather than breasts. We just like the dark meat better, as it stays moister. It’s also cheaper, which I’m not complaining about. 🙂

My first step was to lightly saute some green peppers and red onion in a bit of vegetable oil.

I then added my cubed chicken and continued to saute until the chicken was pretty much done. Once the chicken was sauteed I added buffalo sauce to coat the chicken. I didn’t want it to be soupy, but I knew we wanted it to be good and buffalo flavored, so I added a bit at a time until it was pretty well coated.

In the meantime, I sliced up some french bread, lightly sprayed it with olive oil and lightly toasted it in the oven. When the bread was toasted, I piled the chicken/pepper mixture on the side that had been down in the oven (the one that was more toasted), sprinkled some mozzarella on top, and put it back in the oven for a few minutes to get the other side of the bread more toasty and the cheese melty.

Once the cheese was melted, I plated the pizzas, drizzled them with ranch and sprinkled sliced green onions on top.

They were delicious! Next time I make them I will probably put more green pepper in them, as they do tend to cook down quite a bit.

The flavor of the pork was fantastic. The marinade seems a bit odd, but is so delicious. Some of the pieces turned out a bit dry, specifically the ones on the ends of our skewers and the smaller pieces. It suggests cutting the cubes as evenly as you can, but it’s a bit tough to do that since a pork loin isn’t traditionally square. All in all, definitely a recipe we will be using again. I think maybe next time we will try either cooking the loin whole and injecting some of the marinade or cutting it into medallions rather than small cubes to try to find a balance between maximum flavor and maximum moisture.

A couple of changes, specifically to the parmesan part. I bought a block and grated it myself. The parmesan was pretty strong, and I didn’t use the full 5.3 oz block. I used about half of it, and it was plenty. I also didn’t leave it on the grill a full minute on both sides after adding the parmesan. I did on side for a minute and then just left it on the grill for a few seconds to get the cheese melty on the other, although the pork is still hot when you put it on, so that’s maybe not even necessary.

Addendum: As you can probably tell in the picture, my skewers got a little crispy. That’s because I forgot to soak them (and I just now realized this. A week later.). However, only the ends got crisped, so it didn’t really hurt anything. But next time, I’ll soak them first. 🙂

One of our favorite restaurants in Indianapolis is Broad Ripple Brewpub. They have great food, great beer and are a great place to take groups. Their menu holds an appealing variety and their specials change weekly. One of their specials are jalapeno poppers. When we ordered them the first time, I was expecting a pretty conventional popper. What came out were halved jalapenos in a delicious cheesy sauce. I attempted to recreate those poppers.

The first time I made them I just put a little block of cream cheese in each jalapeno half. The second time I made them I mixed freshly chopped garlic with cream cheese and filled the halves with that.

The next step is covering the jalapenos with shredded cheese. I use mozzarella and freshly shredded Cabot sharp cheddar and any other shredded cheese hanging out in the fridge. This batch includes shredded Mexican cheese blend. If you didn’t put garlic in the cream cheese, sprinkle a little garlic powder on now.

The final step is to bake them. I bake them at around 350 degrees until the cheese is melted and I like to let it get a little brown and crunchy around the edges, about 15 to 20 minutes.

We do jalapeno poppers several ways, but these so far are my favorite!

Directions

I used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sunnys-hard-lemonade-recipe/index.html with a couple of modifications. For example, I bought a bottle of vanilla vodka rather than buying a bottle of plain vodka for the same price and a $12 vanilla bean. I also tripled the recipe, which made just under two gallons. I used two limes instead of one and one really huge lemon.

We love making salmon tacos but we’re always left with half a can of chipotles in adobo sauce and aren’t quite sure what to do with them. Last time we made them, I also had some chicken thighs in the freezer that needed to hit the road and decided that burritos sounded like a great idea. I looked some for a recipe on allrecipes.com, but in the end came up with my own recipe. Here goes!

Throw them all in a crock pot and cook on low until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and falls off the bone. Note: This takes a little while. I think I left it in there for about 5 hours, stirring every once in a while.

(Sorry I somehow end up with a lot of photos of raw chicken on this blog)

When the chicken was ready, I sauteed some green peppers and onions.

Next, I added the chicken and some quartered fresh cherry tomatoes to the skillet just until the tomatoes were heated.

Then we layered rice, black beans I had whipped up in the pressure cooker and the chicken/pepper mixture on a tortilla that had been steamed slightly in our rice cooker. Microwaving for a few seconds would work, too. Heating the tortillas makes them stick to themselves a bit better, so when you roll up your burrito, it stays that way.

After we rolled the burrito, we smothered them in green chile sauce and cheese and microwaved them just long enough to melt the cheese.

Then we added a couple dollops of sour cream, some jalapenos and a few more fresh tomatoes, poured ourselves a couple of margaritas, and enjoyed! They were awesome, if I do say so myself. (Paul agreed)

As many of you know, July 3 was our 1 year wedding anniversary! To celebrate, we ate at Oceannaire, an absolutely amazing seafood restaurant in downtown Indianapolis. I definitely recommend this place if you are into seafood. They have a raw oyster bar, with oysters from several different places. They have specials that change frequently (possibly daily) and all their seafood is flown in fresh. They also went all out for our anniversary, giving us an anniversary card, personalized menus and a free flaming ice cream dessert. It is a bit expensive, so maybe best saved for special occasions.

After dinner, we ate our cake top. The outside was a bit stale, but the further toward the center you got, the better the cake got.

We also went to the Ball & Biscuit, a really neat Mass Ave. establishment. The drinks there are also a bit expensive, but they only use top shelf liquors and the drinks are fairly strong. The high quality of the liquor make the strength not only tolerable, but enjoyable. They have quite a few signature cocktails, which are their specialty, and they make all of their own syrups, so everything tastes great. One drink at the Ball & Biscuit is worth more than 3 drinks at a cheap college bar and the decor and vibe are really great, too. We also got a couple of the cheeses they offer, which were also amazing.

For the 4th Paul and I decided it would be fun to grill, as is tradition, but weren’t in the mood for hamburgers and hot dogs. Instead, I made up this recipe, and it turned out pretty awesome (if I do say so myself) so here it is! The breasts turned out a little dry, but I’m going to go ahead and decide to blame the dead battery in our meat thermometer for that one (because it’s my blog and my cooking and therefore I can do that).

Barbecued Buffalo Beer Can Chicken

Rub whole chicken with spice rub made with salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper, a bit of nutmeg for good measure and a touch of brown sugar. Rub the mixture under the skin. Also pour some Frank’s between the skin and the chicken.

Cut the top off of a beer can and pour out (or drink) about 1/4 of the beer. Put the beer can inside the chicken.

Cook the whole chicken for about 1 hour and 15 minutes in a hot grill with the lid on. Baste with buffalo sauce (1/2 cup Frank’s and 1/3 cup melted butter) around 45 minutes in. Use about 1/2 cup to baste and the rest to dip the chicken in when it is finished.

Has everyone given up and turned on the AC? We did, but the temperature is supposed to drop tonight back into the 60s and stay there for a few days, so hopefully we’ll be able to switch it off and conserve some more power/moolah.

Now that it really feels like summer, I have really been craving fish tacos, so I decided to crack open one of the cook books Paul got for Christmas, Bobby’s Flay’s Grill It! This cookbook is really nice in that it teaches you basic preparation of a lot of different foods, then offers variations for sauces and glazes once you have the grilling technique down. Each section (and there are 17 of them) focuses on a different type of food. The first recipe is usually “perfectly grilled” and then the variations follow.

I chose the San Diego-style Blue Corn Salmon Tacos with Orange-Habanero Hot Sauce.

And they were amazing.

Prep work all finished. On the left, cabbage and green onion which made the tacos nice and crisp and fresh; upper right, the excessive amount of orange habanero hot sauce and below right is a chipotle lime mayonnaise. Yum.

The only thing about the recipe is that it made a cup of the hot sauce and we probably used three tablespoons of it, but I think the recipe makes so much because a habanero can be a potent thing and Flay doesn’t want the sauce to be too spicy. The recipe only calls for one habanero, but Paul and I used two because we love spicy food, and it turned out delicious with just the right amount of heat for us.

Pretty grilled salmon! We used Steelhead salmon fillets, which have lots of omega 3s! We followed Flay's recipe for perfectly grilled salmon, which simply involves coating the fish in olive oil, sprinkling on some salt and pepper and cooking for a few minutes on each side over a grill at high heat. Another tip he offers is to not play with the fish. If you let the fish alone until it lets go of the grill, your fish won't flake apart and fall into the coals.

Then you mix it all together to make a delicious salmon salad, which you then stuff into your tacos. The tacos were really easy to put together because you only have one filling. Heat up a taco shell on the grill, fill with the yummy salmon salad, drizzle on the sauce and enjoy!

Ready for your consuming pleasure! (I couldn't find blue corn taco shells, which is what the recipe calls for. I will try to keep my eyes open for them. We used the shells that stand up for easy stuffing, and they were easier to stuff but harder to eat, so I think next time we'll just use regular ones.)

These things were seriously delicious and we definitely plan to make them again soon! I am going to put the orange-habanero sauce in a freezer ziploc baggie and freeze it in hopes that it will keep and we won’t have to make the sauce every time we want the tacos.

I seriously recommend this book to anyone who likes to grill. The fruit section and the many sections on vegetables also make this a very vegetarian friendly book. Tonight we are making marlin steaks and are going to try a couple more recipes from this book. I’ll let you know how it goes!